The poet’s art is the ability to say the essential with concise precision. As a result, words in the poet’s hand make us bigger thinkers.

But how is it possible to think big these days? Information floods our space daily—technology announcements, financial warnings, international turmoil, epidemics, and so much more. Our attention is divided again and again, until all that remains are snippets of information sticking in our memories here and there.

Thinking big—being able to recognize the essence of something—requires contrast and movement, at least that’s how I understood it after reading Nikki Grimes’ Words with Wings. The storyline is beautiful, but it is the telling that mesmerizes. Every page is a free verse poem no more than twelve lines, most have fewer. Each line rarely spans beyond five words, most are two or three. Grimes uses contrast in almost every poem — good-bad; big-small; hope-despair; brokenness-redemption. I find myself breathing in-out with each contrast.

But other words have wings
that wake my daydreams.
They fly in,
silent as sunrise,
tickle my imagination,
and carry my thoughts away.

Awaken–fly in–carry away. Out–in–out.

I pack my daydreams,
kick them to a dark corner.
No more word journeys for me,
seeing what others don’t see.

Seeing-dark; journey-canceled trip; optimism-disappointment. What are you thinking right now? Can you put it into two words? Consider Grimes’ title selection for this four-line “chapter”— I Quit.

This expand–contract exercise equips us for both big picture thinking and essence-awareness. I recently shared with my photographer-friend that I wanted to photograph my Grandmother’s sewing scissors and thimble. She meant a great deal to me and it would be a way to honor her memory, or maybe preserve the memory of one part of her I remember fondly.

This is my photographer-friend’s perspective:

He didn’t know her, but having shared her era, he knew how to orchestrate its essence, even with many pieces. Like a poet, the setting, light, item choice, and arrangement is precise. “It all has to work together” my landscape-photographer friend said.

This is my perspective:

I love the close-up detail of her well-worn tools, and smile at the size-6 thimble. Tiny, hard-working, lovely creator. Her essence.

Landscape-close-up; expand-contract. Out-in-out, like the arm movement for treading water. It keeps our head above water, creating ever-widening waves. We stop the motion, we sink. We start again and notice everyone else’s waves reaching ours.

“A preacher who absorbs one poem a day will tune his ear, strengthen his diction, and stock his pond with fresh, fresh images.”¹ I’m not a preacher, but Words with Wings stocks my mind with clear, fresh images. It challenges me to look for contrasts within a cacophony of thoughts and ideas. I see how reducing each contrasting element down to five words or less results in an idea’s essence, a bigger picture.

Thank you, Nikki Grimes, for this exquisite example. We may never master your art, but we appreciate the painstaking work it takes, and we will become bigger thinkers because of it.

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1. Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Reading for Preaching (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2013), x.